


The First Birthday

by Idreamofhazel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Birthday Party, Family Issues, Gen, Meta, Sam's Birthday, Season/Series 12, a birthday cake of sadness, have i warned you enough?, heartless emotional angst, mary's guilt surfaces, season 12 meta, that ends in sadness, why can't sam have a happy birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 01:31:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10820922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idreamofhazel/pseuds/Idreamofhazel
Summary: Finding a bit of time in between the BMOL and things with Cas, Mary and Dean surprise Sam on his birthday. It’s nothing big, but the gesture turns into a conversation none of them wanted to have, let alone on Sam’s birthday.





	The First Birthday

It was a nice gesture, really. At least it was meant to be. A birthday cake, a few candles, a small present from Mom and Dean. But somewhere along the way, something went wrong. Maybe the idea was flawed all along, the road of planning paved with good intentions. Or maybe it was the cracks in the family relationships that destined the plan to fall apart. Either way, the birthday celebration turned into a painful heart-to-heart that wasn’t planned, nor necessarily desired at that Moment. There was too much going on. There was always too much going on.

Mary came down the stairs bearing a couple grocery store sacks and a large rectangular box. Sam tried to help her, but she insisted.

“No, no. I got it. Dean can help me. Where is he?”

At that moment, Dean walked in, a grin on his face that told Sam he was in cahoots with whatever this was. He took the box from Mary’s arms.

“I got a basic cake, chocolate with white icing. Dean said you like to eat healthy, so you weren’t really into cake and would like anything,” she said.

“Yeah, I told her how much of a health nut you are!” Dean teased, pridefully carrying the cake.

In that moment Sam understood. This was for him. His birthday.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. Whatever’s fine,” he answered.

His attitude seemed to dampen Mary’s, made her smile more forced, pushed an uneasiness into the room. He needed to be more careful, more sensitive. He could relax today. This was for him, after all.

He watched as Dean set the cake out on the war room table, left the room and came back with a lighter and plates. He watched as Mom set a gift bag down, complete with tissue paper.

Dean placed and lit the candles. They didn’t sing Happy Birthday, it was too quiet for that. Two voices in such a large room. And he was turning 34, after all. Far past the age for being sung to.

Dean made him blow out the candles, though. Insisted because “pictures of that would be the sweetest blackmail.“ Sam was beginning to enjoy himself, the laughter and joking lightened the mood. Mom looked happy, kept watching him and Dean interact. Sam enjoyed seeing Dean happy, enjoyed learning how happy looked on his Mom.

She was trying to get to know them, separately and together, her family and the individuals her boys had grown up to be. This wasn’t really about his birthday, although that was a large chunk of it. This was about making up for lost time, catching up on events that should be memories but weren’t. This was Mary’s first birthday with Sam and Sam’s first birthday celebration with family in…. years.

He blew out the candles like a good sport and made a silent wish. He wished for more moments like this, the three of them together, however that played out.

The cake tasted store bought, but he swore it was sweeter as he listened to Dean and Mom trading stories about him as child, Dean sharing all the random things he had done for Sam on his birthday and how Sam had reacted. Like the one time Dean tried baking a cake but almost set the oven on fire instead. Sam, in Dean’s words, "was the most understanding five year old there was. Walked right up to me and hugged me like a big old sap and told me it was alright, we could just eat birthday sketty o’s instead.”

Mary didn’t ask where John was at the time, didn’t ask what he had done for Sam. She kept the focus on her boys and their remarkable relationship. When the pieces of cake had been nearly finished, she gently pushed the gift bag towards Sam.

“It’s just a little something, from me and your brother,” she said, smiling sheepishly, nervous to be giving him a birthday gift for the first time.

As nervous as he was to receive it, it made him happy, too. There was a quiet and quick stroke of anticipation as he pulled back the tissue paper. He never really got gifts. He never got a gift from his Mom before. What did Moms give you for your birthday, anyway?

He pulled out a couple notebooks, nice ones, not the seventy cent ones he could find anywhere. There was also an external hard drive.

“Because you’re always running out of paper, scribbling on napkins and stuff. Thought they’d be useful,” Dean says.

“And Dean says you’ve been archiving a lot of stuff on your computer. The guy at the electronics store said this would be good for that. It’s got 5 terabytes of storage, whatever that means,” Mary said.

Sam chuckled. “Wow, yeah, this will be great for that.”

“I guess that’s a lot?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s a lot. Thank you, both of you. I love them.”

They had been thoughtful gifts, really. But they brought up memories.

“Hey, this is a step up from the skin mags and car oil we got each other, isn’t it?” Dean remarked, rather innocently.

“Yeah, it sure is.” He remembered that Christmas too vividly, but still smiled about it. It had been one of the best he ever had.

Mary looked back and forth between the two of them, asking silently about the inside joke.

Dean saw how she was left out. “Sam and I, we celebrated Christmas one year, got each other real cheap gifts. He got me car oil and a, uh-”

“Candy bar.”

“Yeah! A candy bar. And I got him skin mags and shaving cream. It was great.”

Mary forced out a laugh, caught up on one detail of that story. “You only celebrated one year?”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. How could they explain the lack of family Christmases?

“Well, it was a special request, it was right before I- before I died,” Dean said.

The conversation went downhill from there, not just because of the mood, but also because of the questions that were unanswered and the painful memories they brought up.

Sam couldn’t really blame her for wanting to know. How could she have realized what that Christmas meant? Why it had happened? And he couldn’t blame her for wanting to know more about everything. But before he knew it, they were talking about him. Dean had died for him, for reasons he didn’t want his Mom to know. She might think less of him, Dean would be the good son, as usual, and Sam would be… the freak. The outcast. Again.

But he wasn’t banking on her already knowing, to a certain extent. He wasn’t banking on anything that came out of her mouth.

"Sam I, there’s something I want to tell you.”

She looked at Dean and he nodded, then got up from the table. Sam stayed silent, watching his Mom closely. What secret could she have?

“The reason I haven’t been around, why I’m trying to make the world a better place, I’m trying to right my wrong, Sam. I’m-”

“I don’t understand, what are you walking about?”

Mary looked at him painfully, an incredibly difficult truth lying right behind her lips.

“I’m the reason your life is like this,” her voice wavered with emotion, “I made a deal with Azazel, to bring your father back, but I didn’t know, he didn’t say he would do anything to you.” She stopped, unable to go further, emotion taking hold of her. She wiped tears off her cheeks and tried to look Sam in the eyes, but couldn’t.

Sam only had one thought. “You, we– I didn’t have to be like this?”

“No,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Sam, I didn’t know. I was desperate, Azazel, he killed my family, killed John, I had no way of knowing.”

In that Moment, Sam realized he never had a choice. Destiny wasn’t to blame, not really, it was other people’s choices that controlled him, that took away his dreams, that took away Jess, that made him unclean. Maybe that’s why Dad always had a problem with him, why Dean was always so hard on him. Maybe he was never really meant to be part of this family. He was meant for Azazel, the throw-away child.

“You gave me up?”

“No, I-”

“Did you ever- did you ever love me?”

“Did I ever? Sam, yes. Don’t you know how much I love you?”

“No, not really. I don’t. I never got that chance.”

Those words were the truth of the whole matter, the hole that still ached inside of him, the questions that begged to be answered. Sometimes he felt like an orphan child, in those moments where dad was gone for long periods of time, when he was away at Stanford, and when Dad had died. And even though Mom was back now, that feeling still crept in like water under a door, threatening to flood his heart. The truth of the whole matter was that he didn’t know his Mom. There was no relationship between the two of them and he wasn’t sure if there was love, either.

“I only knew you for a short period of time, but, Sam, I loved you, I love you with my whole heart. I had so many great plans for you. I always imagined you would do great things, you were such a quick learner. You had already started to crawl a little, although you fell down a lot, you were always babbling. I remember thinking, I’ve got another wonderful baby boy who’s going to grow up and change the world. I didn’t give you up, Sam. I never would have done that. I died because I went into that nursery to save you.”

Sam couldn’t speak. What was he supposed to say to that when all he could feel was hurt and betrayal? The pieces of his life were coming together in a way he never expected. The picture wasn’t pretty. The truth wasn’t easier. This was hard. This was harder than learning about his fate the first time around.

“I’m trying to make up for that,” Mary said, “I now it sounds ridiculous, impossible even, but I want to know you, Sam. I missed out on your entire life. I want to know more about you, to learn about your life, your personality. I want to know who that baby boy became”

“I need some time.” The words felt funny coming out of his mouth and aimed at his Mom. He looked away, didn’t want to see disappointment shade her face.

“Ok, I-I understand.”

He had left the room then. Went to his bedroom and locked the door. Sat on the bed and tried to process everything. That’s where he was now, laying down, staring up at the ceiling fan like he always did when he was thinking. A couple hours had passed at least. His anger had calmed, leaving behind all the other negative emotions that were popping up. But through the absence of his anger, he began to see a clearer picture of his Mom. Had she said Azazel killed her parents? And Dad? He didn’t know that. Supposed that would’ve been motivation enough to make a deal. That’s what Dean had done.

He hoped Mary was still there, that she hadn’t left as soon as he walked away. His hope was answered moments later, when he heard light knocks on the door. He opened it and there she stood.

“Sam, I know you said you needed time, but I didn’t want to leave, not with things between us like this.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah. I’ve got Men of Letters stuff, you know.”

He nodded, waited for her to say something else, but then thought of something to say himself. “I’m not angry at you, I don’t have the whole story, I didn’t know about your parents, or Dad, so, if you want, maybe I can know more about you, too, sometime?”

Worry melted off her face and she smiled again, her shoulders dropping and her eyes twinkling at Sam. “I’d love that.”

He smiled back at her, and she reached out for a hug, hesitantly, like she was afraid he might reject her, but he welcomed it. He never knew how much he would need his Mom’s hugs, nor for how much longer he’d be able to have them.

He watched his Mom leave that night, feeling better than he had a few hours ago, but worse than he had to begin with. But what more could he ask for? He had his family mostly back together, and they had given him the best birthday they knew how to give. It hadn’t been perfect, but he was never looking for that. Maybe he would’ve preferred not to learn about Mary’s deal on today, of all days, but when you’ve died three times on your birthday, almost anything can top that.


End file.
